Our architect had our house photographed by a professional photographer that has shot his other works. The photographer is the talented Hisao Suzuki, based in Barcelona and sole photographer for the architecture magazine El Croquis. He started out as a gourmet photographer for the Japanese magazine Kateigaho (they have an English version focusing on Japanese art & culture) and a short vacation in Barcelona turned into a permanent stay. Since he hasn’t been back to Japan in 6 months, he was craving for good sushi and ate a both Sushi Ota and Shirahama.

Unlike most photographers who set up artificial lights, takes hundreds of shots, and then tweak them in Photoshop, Hisao Suzuki only takes a few shots – he takes note of which shots he wants to take and then waits patiently for the correct light. When the lighting is right he runs around to take the shots he planned. During this photo shoot, he had to wait patiently because the weather was too nice, sunny and no clouds – no contrast – he would have liked it to be cloudy. He took almost all his photos at sunrise and late afternoon. Black is difficult to photograph.

Hisao Suzuki uses a Sinar camera that is essentially a lens and box to hold the film – everything is manual. He measures the light on a light meter, sets up the lens, puts a sheet of film in the box, opens the shutter, times the opening on his watch, and finally closes the shutter. Although the equipment is heavy, he says there’s a lower chance for mistakes, and the camera allows him to get more in the picture than a normal camera would allow.

For the shoot, the architect brought their own furniture pieces for staging.

Our architect’s project manager wears many hats (designer, builder) and this time he played photo assistant – here blocking the sunlight.

During the shoot there were dark clouds on the horizon due to the wildfires in Camp Pendleton near Oceanside. Its Santa Ana season again.